Wickenburg, Arizona, population 6,500, still looks much like the gold-mining town it was in the 1800s. It sits somewhere between faux and retro, 70 miles northwest of downtown Phoenix in the foothills of the Sonoran Desert.
Prospecting for precious metals takes a curious combination of nerve and deep pockets. The same could be said these days for golf course development, especially when it entails an extensive real estate component. The impetus to build Wickenburg Ranch came from two veterans of the Arizona golf development scene, though this is the first time that William Brownlee and Wendell Pickett have dared to co-design a golf course and undertake an entire project on their own.

At a growing number of big-city hotels, the buzz about locally produced food is now more literal: resident bees circling back to rooftop apiaries. Chefs who don protective suits and gloves tend the hives, whose honey has become a popular menu ingredient in restaurants merely floors below.

Barefoot, my pants legs rolled up to my knees, I survey the horizon of mud, sea, birds and crystal-blue skies before focusing on biologist Heike Niemann as she scoops tiny snails into a screened colander. “Living in these sand grains are more than 800 species,” she says.

You know things are out of control when the Burg-Al-Arab starts to seem like a bargain. The Dubai hotel, designed in the shape of a sail billowing over Jumeirah Beach, has long been considered the model of ultra-luxury for those who desire an over-the-top lodging experience. If you really want to impress your in-laws, you can book the Burg-Al-Arab’s marble-and-gold-filled Royal Suite, which comes complete with a dining room for 12, a library, a cinema room and a team of butlers to cater to your every whim. The tab: approximately $24,000 a night.

Napa Valley has many fine dining spots, but it’s hard to beat Press for gourmet American cuisine. Chef Trevor Kunk’s outstanding main dishes include a succulent New York strip steak and a rotisserie-roasted Fulton Farms whole organic free-range chicken, which is expertly brined, then seasoned with a magician’s rack of spices.

Quote/Unquote

“I have such a hard time flying commercial. I always want to—it’s cheaper, it’s easier—but there can be 300 perfectly lovely people at the gate and one crazy person who ruins it for everyone, so flying private is great because I don’t have to worry.
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